Ancient literature was generally written by and produced for elite men. That fact creates specific challenges to modern interpreters of gender roles in the ancient world, especially once contemporary understandings of gender as construction and performance are embraced. In Gender and Second-Temple Judaism, world-renowned scholars take on these challenges with regard to ancient Judaism (here including early Christianity and early rabbinic Judaism as well), at once examining the ancient evidence and quite consciously addressing difficult methodological questions regarding gender. Taken together, these chapters further complicate discussions of the construction of identity (e.g., “who is a Jew?”) by inflecting them with questions of gender construction as well. Scholars of ancient Judaism and of gender alike will find much to grapple with in these pages.
Kathy Ehrensperger is research professor of New Testament in Jewish Perspective at the Abraham Geiger Kolleg, University of Potsdam, Germany.Shayna Sheinfeld is honorary research scholar at the Sheffield Institute of Interdisciplinary Biblical Studies (SIIBS), University of Sheffield.
Introduction: Gender and Second Temple Judaism: Challenges and PossibilitiesShayna SheinfeldChapter 1“The Brooten Phenomenon”: Moving Women from the Margins in Second-Temple and New Testament ScholarshipSara ParksChapter 2Women Itinerants, Jesus of Nazareth, and Historical-Critical Approaches: Reevaluating the Con-sensusAmy-Jill LevineChapter 3Paul, the Man: Enigmatic ImagesKathy EhrenspergerChapter 4From Pain to Redemption: 1 Timothy 2:15 in its Jewish ContextSarah E.G. FeinChapter 5Traversing the Boundaries of Gender: Rebekah’s Usurpation of the Patriarchal Role in the Book of JubileesChontel SyfoxChapter 6The Reinforcement of Patriarchy and the (De)Construction of Gender Roles in Jubilees’ Recep-tion of the Jacob-Esau-NarrativeDaniel VorpahlChapter 7Women and Gender in the Gospel of JohnAdele ReinhartzChapter 8The Framing of Female Knowledge in the Prologue of the Sibylline OraclesFrancis BorchardtChapter 9Female Authorship in Jewis
This is a rich collection of studies on gender from Jubilees to Josephus, Jesus to John and Paul. It challenges assumptions, and subverts the marginalisation of gender studies and its relegation to being a niche area. It is a major contribution to contemporary study of gender, an important aspect of what it meant to be human, which is at the heart of religion in Second Temple Judaism.